John Jaso enjoyed a nine-year MLB career before unofficially hanging up the cleats for good in 2017. Four of the those season were spent with the Tampa Bay Rays organization, with latest campaign latest coming in 2015 before spending the next two seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Well, when 34-year-old, now rocking dreadlocks and a killer tie-dye tank top, attempted to get closer to action at Tropicana Field on Thursday to chat with some former teammates, an usher stopped him dead in his tracks.
Far out, dude.
“Once he did finally charm his way down to the field, thanks to mic’d up third base coach Matt Quatraro,” via Yahoo Sports, “you can hear Jaso say ‘They keep kicking me out of here,’ to which Quatraro responds, ‘I don’t blame them. Look at you.'”
Sure, with the dreadlocks — which he sported during his big-league career — and laid-back, beach-bum apparel, Jaso does not fit the profile of a former major leaguer. Still, the fact that the former catcher could not prove convince the by-the-books usher he was who he said he was proved to be an amusing scene.
And to lend some insight into the kind of offbeat outlook Jaso enjoys, here’s what he had to say about moving on from baseball.
“Traveling, living simply, being anonymous, that sort of stuff,” Jaso told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette of his post-baseball plans in 2017. “Really I just want to live a simple life. I have a sailboat, so I just want to sail away. If you live on a sailboat, it’s really hard to live complicated. You have to keep things simple, so that’s kind of my catalyst and everything, and my ride and my home.”
Dig it.
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